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Had we but
world enough and time,
This coyness, lady, were no
crime.
We would sit down and think which way
To
walk, and pass our long love's day.
Thou by the
Indian Ganges' side
Shouldst rubies find: I by the
tide
Of Humber would complain. I would
Love you
ten years before the Flood;
And you should, if you
please, refuse
Till the conversion of the Jews.
My
vegetable love should grow
Vaster than empires, and
more slow.
An hundred years should go to praise
Thine eyes, and on thy forehead gaze;
Two hundred to
adore each breast,
But thirty thousand to the rest;
An age at least to every part,
And the last age
should show your heart.
For, lady, you deserve this
state;
Nor would I love at lower rate.
But at my
back I always hear
Time's winged chariot hurrying
near;
And yonder all before us lie
Deserts of vast
eternity.
Thy beauty shall no more be found,
Nor,
in thy marble vault, shall sound
My echoing song;
then worms shall try
That long-preserved virginity;
And your quaint honour turn to dust,
And into ashes
all my lust.
The grave's a fine and private place,
But none, I think, do there embrace.
Now, therefore,
while the youthful hue
Sits on thy skin like morning
dew,
And while thy willing soul transpires
At
every pore with instant fires,
Now let us sport us
while we may,
And now, like am'rous birds of prey,
Rather at once our time devour
Than languish in his
slow-chapped pow'r.
Let us roll all our strength and
all
Our sweetness up into one ball,
And tear our
pleasures with rough strife
Thorough the iron gates
of life.
Thus, though we cannot make our sun
Stand
still, yet we will make him run.
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